In recent years, great progress has been made in the field of micro-electronics. Since the advent of integrated circuits and large scale integrated circuits, the performance and capabilities of electronic components have increased enormously. As line width and design rule dimensions have decreased, the number of active elements formed on an integrated circuit chip have increased and the memory density, through-put, and speed of integrated circuit logic components have also increased.
An unfortunate side effect of the shrinking geometries of components on integrated circuit chips is that the components can be extremely sensitive to voltages or currents which are greater than the design specifications. Although assembled components can be protected from static electricity by proper design of circuitry in which the components are used, it has been found that integrated circuit components often may be damaged during production, testing, and other handling, by static electric charges. A static charge which is caused by an individual walking on a wool carpet or the like easily may exceed one thousand volts; an integrated circuit component which is designed for operation at five volts and has a capacitance in the femtofarad range cannot withstand a surge of this magnitude. Static charges have been identified as a significant quality control problem, especially for devices such as field effect transistors which are extremely sensitive to overvoltages.
New packaging techniques have been developed for components which are sensitive to static electricity. For example, such components are often packaged in envelopes which are conductive, so that no static charge may accumulate therein. However, serious quality control problems still exist in the production and testing of electronic components.